The Rolls

There is a simplified list of the links to the different parts of each roll at A List of the Rolls.

In the section European Rolls of Arms I have consulted a total of seventeen rolls. They are listed below, with a brief description of the likely date, present location, type, and the main source of my study.

The pages of the Caerlaverock Poem & The Falkirk Roll have references to other places where arms are found.

Last quarter of the 13th century. The Dering Roll contains 324 coats-of-arms, approximately one quarter of the English baronage at that time, beginning with two of King John's illegitimate children, Richard Fitz Roy and William de Say. The Roll came into the ownership of the notable antiquary, Sir Edward Dering, 1598–1644, who probably acquired it during his years of service as lieutenant of Dover Castle. The parchment roll measures 2645mm by c. 210mm and is complete, consisting of 4 membranes, each measuring approximately 660mm in length. Painted on a green background, it contains 324 coats of arms arranged in 54 rows, with 6 shields assigned to each line. Above each shield is written the knight's name in English cursive script, with the exception of five shields where the names have been omitted or erased.

Compiled between c1285 and c1300. The original is lost, and a fifteenth century copy, made before the death of Charles VII in 1461, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS.français 2249.

It is this copy which serves as the base for the present work, although there are three others which were made later. Little is known of its background.

Vermandois formed part of the present region of Picardy in Northern France, and was a part of the possessions of the French crown, under Philippe II Auguste, from 1185 onwards.

The manuscript is written in the Picard dialect, and contains the blazons of 1076 coats of arms.

The first work on the armorial was carried out in 1952, by Hugh Stanford-London. He simply transcribed the blasons as they appear in the original, without gloss. He presumably intended to publish his work at a later date, but died before he could do so. Some changes to the transcriptions were added by Paul Adam-Even, and a few by Robert Nussard, but the original typescript has remained in the Institut de la Recherche des Textes Historiques in Paris since the death of H S London.

The oldest known original French heraldic manuscript. It is in two parts, not of the same date: the first, showing arms of the vassals of the Ile de France under Saint Louis, can be dated 1265-1270; the second, an armorial of the north of France, the Low Countries and Germany under Philippe III, le hardi, is more difficult to date, but is a complement to the first, 1270-1285. The roll is entirely painted, with the text in French, containing a total of 1312 shields in the two parts.

Source: a series of articles published in Archives Héraldiques Suisses between 1951 and 1954 by Paul Adam-Even and Léon Jéquier.